First they came for the creepy almost-porn apps, and I said nothing because I wasn’t into creepy almost-porn apps. I’m sure this makes sense to businessmen, but I am really fucking uncomfortable with Apple being in charge of what is considered “overtly sexual.”
This is purely “I know it when I see it” fascism. There is no defense for it that doesn’t start and end with “they can do what they want so shut up.”
Buried in this release about the censorship of porn films are nuggets like this:
The Board has also started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films.
Waiting for there to be an A-cup political action committed formed with the slogan “from my cold dead hands.”
This is the true future that mobile ubiquity and unfettered app creation brings us. Welcome to Now. Welcome to the Sticky Sidewalk Future.
Searching for “sex” returns the phrase “the search sex may return sexually explicit content. To get results, change your search terms.” Meanwhile, according to Google Trends, nobody searches for “sex” more than India.
It is hard to believe that they’re still getting away with this. Their reason? You can download naughty books on it, like the Kama Sutra. Nobody tell Apple that you can view the same book in Safari for free on Project Gutenberg, or show them the weird porn you can find on Google, because they’ll have to reject their own browser.
Assholes.
Phil Nelson